Thursday, February 8, 2007

What is it about signing day that makes me feel sleazy? The whole recruiting process is easily the ugly side of college football. Coaches falling all over each other to try and get a recruit by any means necessary. Talking down rival schools, sending text messages over and over, and of course I'm sure there's some school out there sliding some money a recruit's way. Then you have the whole "verbal commitment" crap where a recruit says he's going somewhere and then de-commits and goes somewhere else at the last minute. The whole thing just makes me feel dirty.

The worst part is as college football has gotten bigger, recruiting has followed right behind. These kids are now holding big press conferences to announce their decisions, and already have an entourage and the ego to go with it before even setting foot on campus. It probably doesn't help that you have websites following these kids all season saying they are the "OMG BeST ReCrUiT EVAR~!" It all becomes crystal clear at how ridiculous recruiting has become when Jimmy Claussen (Uber-QB recruit who is going to Notre Dame) announced his decision at the College Football Hall of Fame after arriving in a limo. By the way, does anyone else remember the last Notre Dame QB that was hyped this much before coming on campus? Those who guessed Ron Powlus would be correct. He turned out to be great too, or not. The point I'm trying to make is that these are high school kids who are about to make a rather large step up in terms of competition and these expectations are a bit out of control.

I would go down the list of Michigan's recruits but I think Brian over at Mgoblog is doing a great job of breaking that down. This looks like a decent class for Michigan after a slow start, but we'll see how that translates on the field.